VILNIUS: Russian pipeline gas export monopoly Gazprom has told Lithuania it will implement European Union market rules that would require it to sell off gas transmission assets there, the Baltic state’s prime minister said yesterday.
The EU’s Third Energy Package of legislation, strongly criticised by Moscow in the past, aims to prevent those that dominate supply, such as Gazprom, from also dominating distribution networks.
“Gazprom agrees not to question (implementation) of the EU’s Third Energy Package. We have agreed on this,” the government press office quoted Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius as saying after meeting Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller in the Russian resort of Sochi.
Ex-Soviet Lithuania, which is entirely reliant on Russia for natural gas and pays some of the highest prices in Europe, has been negotiating a new deal with Gazprom. The question of how to apply EU gas market liberalisation rules in Lithuania has been an obstacle in the process.
“I hope that the meeting with Miller will help to speed up the talks (on other issues),” Butkevicius added after the discussion in the Russian resort of Sochi. Gazprom was not immediately available to comment.
Butkevicius, visiting Sochi for the opening of the Winter Olympics, also had an informal meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the press office said.
Lithuania’s government has previously said it would seek to buy the stakes held by Gazprom and Germany’s E.ON in national gas distributor Amber Grid, aiming to regain control of the grid privatised 10 years ago.
Amber Grid was spun off from Lithuanian gas utility Lietuvos Dujos last August, and both companies are 38.9 percent owned by E.ON and 37.1 percent by Gazprom.
Reuters
